Development Update - Playtest v0.15
Hi everyone!
This update has been in the works a bit longer than the others, so there's quite a lot of changes. The main aim of this patch is to move franchises closer to where I want them to be for release. I think franchising is the last big system left in the game; once it's sorted, I anticipate the final push of development can focus on QoL, bug fixing and, of course, adding more dishes, cards and appliances!
Playtesters: this patch should come out for playtesters "shortly", but this is your pre-patch warning that this patch will not be restaurant-save compatible, so if you're midway through a run you should finish it off. Over the next few days I'll try and fix a few reported issues before the patch is released to playtesters.
[h2]Franchising[/h2]
tl;dr: Getting to day 15 is easier, but building your franchises up is the aim.
Getting to your first franchise has been made easier, by dropping the base number of customers (day 15 in 0.15 is roughly day 12 in 0.14.1, ignoring the other buffs below). Franchise tier cards (for now there are only cards for tier 1 and 2) will now add increasing difficulty challenges. The first tier card now moves difficulty to slightly harder than 0.14.1 base. Going forward, I'm hoping to make it so that working up franchise tiers will be the primary challenge for experienced players; as you progress up a franchise you will add more cards, more tier-based challenges, but also have the option of designing your franchise through franchise buff cards. For now, there's only one franchise buff choice (which is the decoration buff, explained below), but I intend that the next patch will have a variety of these that let you build up characterful and different franchises each time
[h2]Shops and Days[/h2]
tl;dr: "Decoration days" are now every 5 days, card days are still every 3 days. There's now a bar at the top of the screen that shows you what's coming up
Decoration days are now separated from card days. Card days are now every 3 days, and decoration days are every 5 days (day 15 is both). Day 5 is also special and is when you add a franchise boost. This should mean you have more money for decorations when they come up, and they'll come up less frequently so you get more normal shops (effectively there's now only two pre-franchise decoration days).
This also means you won't get a new challenge without also having the chance to buy new equipment. I've also tweaked how shops work, but to clarify the mechanics, this is the new version:
[h2]Decorations[/h2]
tl;dr: You now pick a decoration theme and get decorations of that type. Decorations now apply restaurant-wide
Decorations have also been simplified. This was always the system that was hard to explain and lots of people were doing sensible things and getting no benefit, and not being told nothing was happening.
The key changes are:
This has lots of consequences; for instance, you can now "decorate" by buying lots of statues and putting them in a cupboard. I don't think this will be much of an advantage, but I might tweak this to prevent that if it becomes too dominant.
Going forward, decorations will also probably have theme-centric side benefits, so that each decoration has other benefits that might impact where you place it. There's a balance here between letting people decorate how they want their restaurant to look and adding gameplay consequences.
[h2]Desks[/h2]
tl;dr: Two new desks, hopefully all so OP that you'll be pleased with whichever you get, but if not you can now change them via upgrading. Desks are also now manual.
After seeing how much everyone loved getting the discount desk, the blueprint desk has been removed. Wait, sorry, other way round.
The idea is that, instead of nerfing the upgrade desk, I've added two alternatives that should hopefully give the upgrade desk some stiff competition:
I hope that these should offer the chance for different playstyles that all feel very strong; the blueprint desk is probably still quite good, but the copying desk would be great if there was one particular appliance you wanted a lot of, for instance. The discount desk should also mean you can get high-value appliances easily, particularly with low-price dishes.
Sadly all things have downsides, and for desks, it's this: desks are now manual. You have to interact with the desk for a few seconds in order to cause it to act on one nearby cabinet. The main intention here is to make it so you have to have access to your office during the day. The duration might need tweaking, particularly in solo runs.
On the plus side if you can get them all, then the desks stack and you can have an infinite free blueprint printer, so it's not all bad. Cabinets now also have an indicator showing what type of desk they're affected by.
[h2]Booking Desk[/h2]
tl;dr You can now post your PlateUp! any% times
One of the main problems I'm working on is how to balance the game between new/casual players and those of you who have played for more than a hundred hours (you know who you are!). It's really important to me that the game scales up and provides consistent challenge, but there's not much point in that if the game is too hard for people to get started. To help with this, the game is now easier (pre-franchise), and will probably continue to get easier as we approach release.
While franchises provide lots of difficulty increases, I don't want starting a new franchise to feel like a chore for experienced players. So, this patch introduces a new mechanic that lets you rush customers into your restaurant. For new players, you can entirely skip this mechanic and play as before. For players looking to jump into higher tiers, you now receive a (free) blueprint on day 1 for a booking desk. Interacting with the booking desk brings the next customer group into the restaurant instantly.
Features
This update has been in the works a bit longer than the others, so there's quite a lot of changes. The main aim of this patch is to move franchises closer to where I want them to be for release. I think franchising is the last big system left in the game; once it's sorted, I anticipate the final push of development can focus on QoL, bug fixing and, of course, adding more dishes, cards and appliances!
Playtesters: this patch should come out for playtesters "shortly", but this is your pre-patch warning that this patch will not be restaurant-save compatible, so if you're midway through a run you should finish it off. Over the next few days I'll try and fix a few reported issues before the patch is released to playtesters.
[h2]Franchising[/h2]
tl;dr: Getting to day 15 is easier, but building your franchises up is the aim.
Getting to your first franchise has been made easier, by dropping the base number of customers (day 15 in 0.15 is roughly day 12 in 0.14.1, ignoring the other buffs below). Franchise tier cards (for now there are only cards for tier 1 and 2) will now add increasing difficulty challenges. The first tier card now moves difficulty to slightly harder than 0.14.1 base. Going forward, I'm hoping to make it so that working up franchise tiers will be the primary challenge for experienced players; as you progress up a franchise you will add more cards, more tier-based challenges, but also have the option of designing your franchise through franchise buff cards. For now, there's only one franchise buff choice (which is the decoration buff, explained below), but I intend that the next patch will have a variety of these that let you build up characterful and different franchises each time
[h2]Shops and Days[/h2]
tl;dr: "Decoration days" are now every 5 days, card days are still every 3 days. There's now a bar at the top of the screen that shows you what's coming up
Decoration days are now separated from card days. Card days are now every 3 days, and decoration days are every 5 days (day 15 is both). Day 5 is also special and is when you add a franchise boost. This should mean you have more money for decorations when they come up, and they'll come up less frequently so you get more normal shops (effectively there's now only two pre-franchise decoration days).
This also means you won't get a new challenge without also having the chance to buy new equipment. I've also tweaked how shops work, but to clarify the mechanics, this is the new version:
- Each shop day you get given three "staples", which are hobs, sinks, tables and counters. In 0.15 you will not get offered the same staple twice on the same day
- You get two "extras", which are all other (non-upgrade) appliances, picked randomly. In 0.15 the blueprint desk will deduct one of these (i.e. your extra blueprint gets replaced with the one you pick)
- You also get offered any "guaranteed" appliances that you don't have; currently these are the cabinet and the upgrade desk.
[h2]Decorations[/h2]
tl;dr: You now pick a decoration theme and get decorations of that type. Decorations now apply restaurant-wide
Decorations have also been simplified. This was always the system that was hard to explain and lots of people were doing sensible things and getting no benefit, and not being told nothing was happening.
The key changes are:
- Decoration boosts are now restaurant wide. If an appliance gives +1 to a theme, your whole restaurant gets that benefit
- Decoration buffs are displayed on the left hand side during prep time, together with how many points you need to get the next buff. Buffs apply to the whole restaurant
- You now pick a theme and all decorations will be only for that theme. This means it's much easier to decorate into the style you want. At the moment you only pick one theme, but I expect that later you will be able to pick a second/third theme as part of the franchise upgrade process
- "Generic" decorations aren't part of a theme and don't give theme points, but instead give a buff to everything in their range (as before). To make this clearer, there is now an icon on the tables affected and looking at the table will explain the buff
- Similarly, hobs, sinks and bins have negative debuffs that are caused by placing them near tables. In the future there will be franchise upgrades to mitigate these to enable hibachi-style restaurants, or restaurants where there are bins everywhere, etc.
This has lots of consequences; for instance, you can now "decorate" by buying lots of statues and putting them in a cupboard. I don't think this will be much of an advantage, but I might tweak this to prevent that if it becomes too dominant.
Going forward, decorations will also probably have theme-centric side benefits, so that each decoration has other benefits that might impact where you place it. There's a balance here between letting people decorate how they want their restaurant to look and adding gameplay consequences.
[h2]Desks[/h2]
tl;dr: Two new desks, hopefully all so OP that you'll be pleased with whichever you get, but if not you can now change them via upgrading. Desks are also now manual.
After seeing how much everyone loved getting the discount desk, the blueprint desk has been removed. Wait, sorry, other way round.
The idea is that, instead of nerfing the upgrade desk, I've added two alternatives that should hopefully give the upgrade desk some stiff competition:
- The discount desk has been replaced with a new version that discounts blueprints in cabinets to be completely free.
- The copying desk will provide you with duplicates of blueprints in surrounding cabinets, and this can be repeated each day.
I hope that these should offer the chance for different playstyles that all feel very strong; the blueprint desk is probably still quite good, but the copying desk would be great if there was one particular appliance you wanted a lot of, for instance. The discount desk should also mean you can get high-value appliances easily, particularly with low-price dishes.
Sadly all things have downsides, and for desks, it's this: desks are now manual. You have to interact with the desk for a few seconds in order to cause it to act on one nearby cabinet. The main intention here is to make it so you have to have access to your office during the day. The duration might need tweaking, particularly in solo runs.
On the plus side if you can get them all, then the desks stack and you can have an infinite free blueprint printer, so it's not all bad. Cabinets now also have an indicator showing what type of desk they're affected by.
[h2]Booking Desk[/h2]
tl;dr You can now post your PlateUp! any% times
One of the main problems I'm working on is how to balance the game between new/casual players and those of you who have played for more than a hundred hours (you know who you are!). It's really important to me that the game scales up and provides consistent challenge, but there's not much point in that if the game is too hard for people to get started. To help with this, the game is now easier (pre-franchise), and will probably continue to get easier as we approach release.
While franchises provide lots of difficulty increases, I don't want starting a new franchise to feel like a chore for experienced players. So, this patch introduces a new mechanic that lets you rush customers into your restaurant. For new players, you can entirely skip this mechanic and play as before. For players looking to jump into higher tiers, you now receive a (free) blueprint on day 1 for a booking desk. Interacting with the booking desk brings the next customer group into the restaurant instantly.
Changelog v0.15
Features
- Desks are now manual. Using a desk will affect one random cabinet adjacent to the desk, and can be repeated. Reworked the discount desk to make it (much?) better, and added the photocopying desk. You can now upgrade any of these three desks (discount, upgrade, photocopy) to get the one you want, but I'm hoping they're all so OP you might not want to. Desks also stack, so you can apply all three to the same blueprint.
- Added the Booking Desk; this is offered in an envelope (for free) on day 1 if you are above level 1. Using this desk will accelerate time to the next customer arrival, allowing you to speedrun hurry through early days/franchises
- Adds theme cards, offered decorations are now based on your theme
- Decoration values and buffs are now restaurant-wide
- Appliances with specific buffs now have their own icons that show what they're affecting
- There are now some probably-placeholder Affordable (burger) decorations and Formal (tie) decorations
- Rugs are now "highly flammable" and will catch fire very quickly if next to a fire; added Floor Protector, a cheap appliance that has no decoration buff but can be used to prevent spills on the tile
- Appliance info panels have been made more streamlined to take up less screen space
- Interactions can now be sped up by doing them with multiple people; having two people interact with a sink, for instance, will wash the plates faster
- The entire icon set and system has been updated with a new version that allows more flexibility
- Added icons for buffs that affect tables
- Added icons for customer patience modifiers (for now, Victorian Standards and the patience-when-near-player-buff). These will show you when this particular modifier is active
- You can now split things into a merge (i.e. you can take a portion of mash while holding a plate). Also standardised all splittable things to be split by using interact rather than grab; this might need a bit of QoL tweaking
- You can now see how many dirty plates there are on a table
- Reworked how franchises are handled in the HQ. There is now a projector which displays your current franchise and can be cycled through to select a different franchise. This is a bit minimal at the moment but will later show stats/cards/remaining lives/etc. of your franchise. Your restaurant name is now saved as your franchise name to help you identify it and will be the default name for restaurants of that franchise
- Added a new display bar for showing what day you are on, together with what type of day each subsequent day is
- "Bad" decorations have been replaced with specific debuffs for hobs, sinks and bins. Placing these near tables will result in a type-specific debuff
- Pre-franchise runs are now easier; the first tier of franchise should now be roughly as many customers as there were previously in pre-franchise. Long term, my intention is that all players should be able to work their way up franchise tiers, and experienced players will be looking to push franchise tiers as high as possible.
- Franchises now only add 3 cards per run
- You no longer take a new main for each franchise stage. Expect this to return later in a different form. Basically in the long run the intention is that players will have franchises of very high levels, and forcing a new dish each time made this impossible.
- Item values are now slightly adjusted by number of players; you get slightly more money in solo (your total income for each day should now be roughly the same as duos) and slightly less money in 3s and 4s (you'll still end up with more money than duos, but not as much as before). To support this, if a dish was going to give a fractional value (i.e. 4 coins + 10% buff) it will now give either 4 or 5 randomly.
- There is now an additional scaling factor for the number of courses you have. Taking your first dessert or starter will drop your customer counts.
- The shop will no longer give duplicate "staples" (counter, hob, table, sink). You now get 3/4 of these each day, so getting no tables offered should be extremely rare
- Slightly increase the penalty for having a long queue
- The blueprint desk now replaces one of your shop blueprints instead of giving you an extra one
- You can no longer place wall-attached things over doors or hatches (e.g. hang a painting over a hatch)
- Fixed a bug that meant crab cakes couldn't be put in the prep station
- Reworked Victorian Standards: patience is now only lowered when customers are looking at you (and you are in the room), so you can mitigate this card by carefully arranging your chairs. It also no longer affects delivery patience. It also no longer stacks with number of players
Fixed a bug where swapping two table would cause things to teleport
Fixed a few appliances that were unobtainable incorrectly (dirty plate rack, pushing mixer)
Woks will no longer cause their contents to be uncooked if you use one on another
Fixed a bug where some automated appliances would run during prep time (particularly causing platers to throw out all your plates)
Added better handling for visual errors which should cause the game to crash less often
Host stands are now patience-sorted, so having two automatic host stands will cause the least-patient to be sent to a table first
Fixed a number of crashing bugs
Added a debug output when a controller type is not detected properly (if you are playing with a switch/PS controller and the prompts are incorrect, please send me your Player.log file)
The front door just doesn't collide any more with anything at all at any point during the day customers please just stop getting stuck on it I'm begging you
Fix a bug with wallpaper texture not lining up properly
Toggling a chair off in prep time will no longer immediately start toggling it back on again, and vice versa
Fixed a bug where placing two menus on a table would cause both groups to try and sit there
Day 16+ are now called "Overtime Day 1" etc to emphasise that they are post-win
Fixed a bug where you could move the card selectors around in franchise mode
Fixed a bug with incorrect prompts on Xbox controllers
Cards now have an icon displaying the type of card they are
Fixed a bug where some cards would be offered as a franchise choice incorrectly
Rushes are now displayed in group counts as a "+ X"
Fixed a bug where blueprints that were affordable because of a discount would look unaffordable
